The crosses stand in a row along the edge of the yard where grass meets curb, knee-high and painted white. A passerby might be confused by the display, before seeing the sign placed behind them reading “Please take a cross.”

This is the scene for two yards in Russellville belonging to members of the St. John’s Lutheran Church. Travis and Patty Arnold make the crosses, while Darrell Kobs — the pastor at the church — places some in his front yard as well.

With crosses adorning front yards all across Russellville and a growing demand for more, the church is opening a workshop for the men’s group in an effort to increase production of the crosses.

For the Arnolds, making crosses to give away started out as a hobby in 2010, one started by an email sent from a friend urging them to place a small white cross in their front yard. Travis made a cross for their front yard and gave several away to nearby neighbors who admired the crosses.

Travis and Patty showed the pastor the email. The three had been thinking of a way to get a message to the community about being a Christian just a week before. Where some might have seen convenient timing, Kobs saw a sign.

“It was like an answer,” he said.

“Gee, was that a coincidence?” Travis asked Kobs jokingly. “Was that an accident? I don’t think so.”

Nine thousand crosses later, the three still don’t believe in coincidence.

The project, which is now called “Crosses Across America,” has influenced other cities across the state including Searcy, whose residents have put out approximately 30,000 crosses of their own. As many as 10 crosses were taken from their yard some days.

“I don’t know how I kept up with it,” said Travis, who cuts the crosses for Patty to paint. He makes 100 at a time, which he said takes half a day.

For Kobs, becoming a Christian started when he was baptized. He grew up in the church and attended school in St. Paul and St. Louis for more than eight years to become a pastor. For him, the crosses represent a Christian lifestyle based on loving our neighbor.

He had been serving a church in San Diego when he got the call to come to Arkansas in 1991.

“I had no impressions of Arkansas,” he said. “I had looked up some stuff on it, and took a leap of faith to come here.”

One just has to look at their love story to know why the Arnolds don’t believe in chance. Travis and Patty first met in 1957, when Patty’s family moved into a house across the street from Travis in Illinois. Patty started regularly attending church, as Travis’s mother would drive neighborhood kids to church in her station wagon.

They grew up together and dated for a short time when they were teenagers, before Patty and her family moved to California. They didn’t see or speak to each other for several years, as they both married and started families.

But both of their spouses passed away. Years later, when Patty’s brother went on a business trip to Illinois, he decided to look up some of their old friends, and he looked up Travis.

“The first thing Travis asked him was, ‘where’s your sister? I’ve been looking for her for years.’ He said she’s in California, and not long after that he took a business trip to California,” she said with a laugh.

“When we met, the love was there that had always been there, except it kept growing stronger and stronger,” she added.

That was in 1996. They would get married in 2002, but not without some scares along the way. In 1999, doctors diagnosed Patty with a brain tumor and gave her a small chance of surviving. Doctors gave her the choice between surgery or living for two more years. She elected surgery.

It was a tough decision for Patty, but she maintained her faith.

“He was with me every step of the way,” she said. “I didn’t doubt God. I didn’t understand why I had a brain tumor, but I didn’t doubt him.”

“They went to perform the surgery, and there was this most beautiful light,” she said. “And the doctors said they came very very close to me not making it. But then they said suddenly it was like ‘boom.’ And I came through.”

Travis continued to call and visit Patty for several more years before he decided to figure out how she felt.

“I made a pretense of going out there to play golf with a nephew, and I said, ‘I’m going out there, and I’m going to find out how she feels about me,’” he said. “If she wasn’t interested, I was just going to go on with my life.”

“She went to the bathroom while they were having dinner with her brother and his wife, and when she came back, I stood up and we both said ‘I love you’ at the same time,” he added.

They married in California. “From then on, it’s all history,” Travis said. It’s the best years of our lives.”

People interested in helping or joining the men’s group can contact the St. John’s Lutheran Church at 968-1309.